Fred Newman

Fred Newman lends his veteran voice-over artistry to Doug's 1st Movie. The Emmy Award winning actor, writer and comedian is already familiar to many as the voice of Harry in Steven Spielberg's feature Harry and the Hendersons. Among his other feature credits, Newman's vocal creations can be heard in Cocoon, Gremlins, and Gremlins II, Solar Babies, Far & Away, Explorers, O.C. and Stigs, Bright Lights, Big City, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, For Love or Money, Practical Magic, Wolf and Radio Days.

Newman is also the Original Sound Designer and Music Composer and Director for the ABC Saturday morning series Doug and his whistles, pops and vocal scat are heard in the music of both the TV series and Doug's 1st Movie.

In television, Newman received the CableACE Award as host of Livewire, a talk/variety show for young adults on Nickelodeon. He voiced various creatures for Spielberg's television series Amazing Stories, and logged six seasons as host of The Mickey Mouse Club, The Disney Channel's top-rated comedy/variety show for teenagers, for which he received two CableACE Award nominations. He won a 1995 Emmy Award for the short films that he created and acted in with new- vaudevillian Avner the Eccentric on Comedy Central, and a 1995 Globus Award for his on-camera creation of 16 live-action characters for Nickelodeon's Nick or Treat.

Newman performed off-Broadway in an original musical revue with impressionist Marilyn Michaels, and he was the lead in a CBS comedy Puppetman, a comedy series produced by the late Jim Henson.

For children, Newman's award-winning book and record Zounds! (Random House) was recently published in England, where he often performs on television. He served as a consultant for the Children's Television Workshop and for Jim Henson Productions, and wrote a Muppets musical that toured internationally. He has hosted the International Children's Festival at The Brooklyn Academy of Music, and is now working on and will be featured in a new WGBH PBS show called, Between the Lions, a new phonics and reading show. He has recently received several grants to take his stories, sounds and music to thousands of ten-year-old in rural Georgia and Alabama.

A native of Georgia, Newman graduated from Harvard Business School. He began his eclectic career writing a best-selling humor book and record, MouthSounds, a tongue-in-cheek guide to noise making, now in its 10th printing, with a forthcoming sequel book and CD.

A self-described nerd in a basement, he continues to hold a special fondness for fish, dogs, string and combs found on the street - subjects of a forthcoming book of short stories and one-man show using Audio Virtual Reality (digital, binaural sound), characters, live jazz and the Internet.